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"The most awesome part about being one of the primary storytellers of a popular television show is hearing how much its most loyal fans hate it," Lost creator Damon Lindelof wrote this weekend in the Daily Beast. For a long time, Lindelof confesses, he felt that people who constantly complained about Lost weren't actually fans, not really — and then he saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. And despite his love of the series, he hated it (nothing happens, there's hardly any Snape, it should have been compressed into a half-hour, etc.). Time for a little bit of soul-searching!

As I staggered out into the parking lot, my brain was deftly trying to resolve a deep and complicated paradox: If I loved the book, and the movie was an incredibly loyal adaptation of that book ...

How could I possibly hate the movie? And even more distressing ...

Based on the careful emotional logic I'd been using to insulate myself from the slings and arrows of "Why didn't you people answer any goddamn questions?" and "A golden light in the middle of the island? SERIOUSLY?!?", if I hated the movie ...

Did that mean I was no longer a fan?

And yet, Lindelof realized, he was still a fan — he was just a fan who felt a little bit better if he took to the Internet to vent about the problems with the thing he really loved, deep down.

And so I sincerely and genuinely apologize to all those whom I have stripped of their Lost fandom just for complaining about the stuff you didn't like. It doesn't make you any less a fan. In fact ...